Wednesday, April 1, 2009

I was sitting here at my computer, more or less rummaging the news and looking over some blogs from others, just reading and looking to fill some time when I realized something that quite simply has changed my life..Has everyone heard the story of the mustard seed...

The Mustard Seed 18 He said therefore, "What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? 19It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches."

Have you ever really just sat and thought about what a seed is and what that seed can become when it reaches it's full potential..A seed if never planted can never be anything..It can serve in no other capacity nor be anything else..It must be planted in order for it to ever be something..

So as I was saying I was sitting at the computer and look over to my left by the window and noticed a small pot with some potting soil and a few very small cantaloupe plants..and I said to myself.."What a great picture of God"..Those small baby plants started out as a mere seed...dropped in some soil and then a couple 10 days later, you have these small plants that are on their way to maturity, to produce fruit...A little water, lots of sun and these small seeds germinate and begin the journey of reaching their fullness ...to be what they were designed to do..To bear fruit..The seed has no other avenue to which it can take..It cant become anything else..It can only become a cantaloupe..Not a watermelon, not a tomato or not even an oak tree..It can only become a cantaloupe..That is what it's entire existence is to be..It will take months before it reaches the apex of its life, but when the fruit are ready to be picked, it will have successfully carried out it design...

Now lets get deep and translate this over to our lives since God felt this was a very appropriate parable to give us in the bible.

We as humans are just like these seeds..without soil, water and sun they can not fulfill the design..We without Jesus (our soil) and without the Word (water) and without the Holy Spirit and Prayer (Sun) we can never fulfill our design.. We must be firmly planted in Jesus Christ before any amount of watering can begin..We, just like the seed can never be anything unless we are first planted..We are of no use if we never accept Jesus as Lord and Savior..We are just like a seed in that regard..being nothing, producing nothing, existing but not for the purpose to which we were designed..I imagine a seed could stay in the packet for as long as we left it there...but it is of no use or value until it gets planted..We must understand that Jesus Christ is the life blood to our existence just as the soil is the lifeblood for the seed..No soil, no growth..No Jesus, no growth( spiritual growth)..If we are never planted in Christ, we are also of no value or use for the kingdom of God..no matter how good of a person we think we might be.. This is crucial for us to understand.. Jesus Christ is the only thing that can help us reach our potential..our created design to bear fruit..only our fruit will be different than cantaloupe, it will be Love, Joy, Hope, Peace, faithfulness, etc..but that fruit needs some help along the way..Just planting it in the soil is a great first step, but there has to be some watering and sun in order to help grow the seed to fullness.. Jesus is the first step and that step can not be skipped or manipulated..It must happen first..Our germination as humans begin when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and believe in Him as the only way..Once the germination happens, which is the most difficult phase in this wonderful journey of life...then the spiritual growth can begin.. We need to water our souls and mind with the spiritual food of the Word of God..This is absolutely necessary in order for us to sprout some small leaves and begin to mature as Christians.. Just like a plant, you cant just water it once a week, or once a month and expect it to grow and look healthy.. We are the same way..We can open the bible sparingly and read it occasionally and expect to grow as a Spiritual being and look like a healthy spiritual being..It is a daily dose of God's Holy Word that can amazingly work in our lives to bring us to a fulfillment of our created design..This renewing of the mind as mentioned in Romans 12:2 is source to which we go to for nurturing..without it, we wither and fade, just like the small tiny fragile little plant does without its water source..

SO now we have sprouted a few leaves, our roots are digging deeper into the soil and we begin to need more and more in order to continue to grow..What was once a drop of water now has turned into a half a cup in order to maintain our path to bearing fruit..That means we must spend more time in the word and begin to meditate on it and memorizing it...Our bible intake must grow substantially in order for us as eternal souls are to grow and mature.. Now you add the powerful force of the sun, coupled with the soil and the water and this plant can really begin to take off.....so we now have the power of the Holy Spirit shining down on us, guiding our way, helping us to become the mature spiritual being we were designed to be..If you notice a plant will lean toward the direction of the sun if it is at or near a window..This plant in front of me is just inside the window, but the entire direction of the plant is pointing out the window..You can almost see that it desperately seeks out the sun to help it grow..We as humans must desperately seek out the Holy Spirit and look toward it, if we are to gain understanding from our time in the word..The Bible is vastly deeper than we can imagine and there is much more in those words and pages that what meets the eye...but with the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us, we are able to make sense of the beautifully woven fabric of the Word of God..and how it is to apply to our life in this moment and this day..Without the spirit translating the Word, it is merely words on paper that may or may not have that much of an impact on how you live..Just like the plant..without the sun, the plant will possible grow, maybe not at all, but certainly will be much much slower than it should and could potentially die off.. The interesting thing about the plant is no matter what stage of the plants life it is in..it must have water..You take the water away and it will without fail, fade away and die..You can plant the seed, water it once and expect it to produce anything but an empty pot.. We are the exact same..You cant become a germinated Christian rooted in Jesus Christ and then not read the Bible ever again..You will also wither away and die..You will become a victim of the world...The word is an absolute necessity to the Christian Life..There is no way around it..You can 't simply get by on hearing a Sunday sermon no more than a plant can get by on a droplet of water..You need irrigation..You need a life spring of water to grow you up strong in the Faith...When the bible begins to collect dust and ceases to be opened and studied, then your spiritual growth begins to wither and fade until you either begin to water it again and get nourished or you leave God behind and take up the worldly agenda..rejecting the plan God has for you and the created design.. So we must be diligent stewards of our time, always allowing time for the Word of God to Grow our minds and our souls so that we can reach our potential...of bearing fruit...

Then there will be a day in our life with the right soil, proper and consistent watering, plenty of sun that we will bear fruit..just as this tiny little plant will also one day bear fruit..That is the culmination of perseverance and steadfastness..If any of your have ever tried to grow a garden..it takes work..It takes constant attention..It takes effort..but the end result is a wonderful fruit that is soothing to the palate...Our created purpose is to follow Christ and submit our life to Him..To spread the gospel to all peoples and to be doers of the word and not just hearers..to live out our faith and to one day reach our full potential where we are producing so much fruit, it is unmistakable who we are..Many plants look alike along their journey to producing fruit...but once the fruit comes, it is unmistakable what kind of plant that is..Are you not yet bearing fruit, and at a point where the people around you are not sure if you are a Christian plant or a Worldly plant.. Can others look at your fruit and see that you are a plant of God's design...and not one that looks like the plant of this world..? or better yet..are you watering your soul every day in order to reach the point you will sprout the fruit of the spirit..when you can turn your cheek and walk away from a situation...or humble yourself in front of your spouse or children and apologize for acting foolish or immature, or reaching your hand out to help those who are in dire need, to love someone who has treated you like dirt for years, or to forgive someone who has stabbed your right in the middle of your heart..If not...keep watering, look toward the sun and press on!!

How appropriate my study today was in James 1..:)

James 1 (The Message)James 1 1I, James, am a slave of God and the Master Jesus, writing to the twelve tribes scattered to Kingdom Come: Hello! Faith Under Pressure2-4Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.5-8If you don't know what you're doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You'll get his help, and won't be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who "worry their prayers" are like wind-whipped waves. Don't think you're going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.9-11When down-and-outers get a break, cheer! And when the arrogant rich are brought down to size, cheer! Prosperity is as short-lived as a wildflower, so don't ever count on it. You know that as soon as the sun rises, pouring down its scorching heat, the flower withers. Its petals wilt and, before you know it, that beautiful face is a barren stem. Well, that's a picture of the "prosperous life." At the very moment everyone is looking on in admiration, it fades away to nothing.12Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.13-15Don't let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, "God is trying to trip me up." God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one's way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer.16-18So, my very dear friends, don't get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.